Everyone said it was the impossible mission. Everyone said the Super Rugby quarter-final between the ACT Brumbies and Wellington Hurricanes was a fait accompli.
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In the end the Hurricanes won a brutal battle 35-16 at Canberra Stadium on Friday night, ending the Brumbies' season and continuing Australian rugby's woes against New Zealand sides.
But if there's only one thing the Brumbies and their fans can take away from a season of hope, it's that the club has built a culture of refusing to wilt even when everything looks glum.
On the same night Christian Lealiifano made an emotional comeback after battling leukaemia, the Brumbies delivered a gutsy finals effort in a bid to keep a championship dream alive.
By the end of the match they were out on their feet after a herculean effort defending from almost the entire second half, losing a one-point lead at the break as the Hurricanes' extended New Zealand's Kiwi dominance to 26 games in a row this year.
The loss signals the end of club champion Stephen Larkham's coaching reign and the Brumbies had to deal with finals heartbreak for the fifth consecutive year.
Scott Fardy, Jarrad Butler, Tomas Cubelli, Chris Alcock and Jordan Smiler all join Larkham in finishing their careers in Canberra
But all can hold their heads high after pressing the defending champion Hurricanes all the way before succumbing to a second-half onslaught.
Lealiifano's comeback moment was a shining light in the second half as the playmaker ran on to the field for the first time in 11 months.
Some feared he would never play again after being diagnosed with leukaemia last year. He had chemotherapy, had a bone-marrow transplant with sister Sally and rode the wave into remission.
He was injected just after half-time but had to wait 26 minutes just to touch the ball as the Hurricanes starved the Brumbies of possession and strangled their way to a superb win.
"Christian is an amazing story, even before he ran out on the field he had already won. We could see the spirits lift as soon as he came on," said Brumbies captain Sam Carter.
"It was pretty tough, we couldn't get out of our own end. We gave them too much ball and we ran out of steam, full credit it to them.
"I think towards the end we just needed to clear out of our half but we just couldn't do that. Bernie has been a big part of this organisation for 20 years and I wish him all the best."
Few gave the Brumbies a chance of playing finals this year after Lealiifano's diagnosis and the departure of David Pocock, Matt Toomua and Joe Tomane.
But a young side scrapped and fought its way through every game of the season and threatened to cause a massive boilover when they scored two early tries to catch the Hurricanes napping.
"We spoke at half time about trying to get out of our end and trying to be a little bit more aggressive coming out of our end. We failed to do that in the second half," said Larkham, who will now take up a full-time role with the Wallabies.
"There was no doubt that the guys worked and put as much effort as they could we just didn't execute when we needed to."
The Brumbies were brilliant in the opening minutes, controlling the tempo and showing plenty of patience in a bid to crack the Hurricanes' brick-wall defence.
They held it for the first three minutes before they finally found a crack, with Andrew Smith holding on to a finger-tip pass to then find James Dargaville for the first try of the game.
But the Hurricanes need just one chance to show why they're the best attacking team in the competition.
The Hurricanes threw the ball long from their first lineout and flying winger Wes Goosen timed his run perfectly to step and weave through three defenders to level the score.
The Brumbies hit back with a penalty and then set up a rolling maul to destroy the Hurricanes' defence for another try to open up a 13-5 lead when Josh Mann-Rea got across the line.
Their 13-point haul was their highest points tally in the first 20 minutes of any game this season.
But the Hurricanes are the experts of punishing teams pay for small errors, and they punished the Brumbies to change the momentum of the game.
Hurricanes scrumhalf TJ Perenara drilled a pass into the head of prop Ben May and the ball rebounded into the Brumbies' ingoal for Jordie Barrett to cut the gap to just one point.
It was the sort of freak try capable of breaking a team's spirit, especially after defending courageously against an electrifying Hurricanes side.
"We knew we let ourselves down in the first half, the Brumbies came out and they were firing. We knew they were going to throw everything at us early," Perenara said.
"We know they're a good team and they defend well. We didn't expect to score all the time, we wanted to build pressure.
"More importantly I want to congratulate Christian for coming back, I'm all about winning but what he's done is inspiring."
The Brumbies were set to take a one-point lead into half-time, but momentum changed again when Hurricanes' tighthead prop Jeff Toomaga-Allen was sent to the sin bin in the 40th minute for a high shot on Wharenui Hawera.
They pushed the Brumbies into the danger zone in injury time, but Chris Alcock was held up when the Brumbies got across the line and had to settle for a 16-15 advantage.
Lealiifano came on to the field to start the second half but it almost ended in disaster when the Brumbies lost the ball and gave the Hurricanes a golden chance to steal the lead.
Somehow the Brumbies survived but they were scrambling just to stay in the contest even though they had a one-man advantage.
They made mistakes and threw silly passes, opening the door for Jordie Barrett to slot his second penalty to give the Hurricanes the lead for the first time of the match.
The Hurricanes saw the tiniest of cracks in the armour and went all-out attack for the first 30 minutes of the second half as the Brumbies' season of hope edge so close to the edge of disaster.
The Brumbies bravely held on for life as wave after wave came their way. Eventually the holes had to appear and it was Perenara who scored against the tired defence.
AT A GLANCE
WELLINGTON HURRICANES 35 (Wes Goosen 2, Jordie Barrett, TJ Perenara tries; Jordie Barrett 2, Beauden Barrett conversions; Jordie Barrett 3 penalties) bt ACT BRUMBIES 16 (James Dargaville, Josh Mann-Rea tries; Wharenui Hawera 2 penalties) at Canberra Stadium on Friday night. Referee: Glen Jackson. Crowd: 9771.
